Subliminal God words curb cheating regardless of personal religiosity.

Evidence

In a pair of studies, Azim Shariff and I set out to find the answer. We first measured the degree to which University of British Columbia students believe God is kind, compassionate, and forgiving or mean, wrathful, and punishing. It turns out that these two perceptions are moderately inversely related, meaning that the more one believes God is mean, the less one also believes God is kind. (This contradicts theological teachings that may prescribe both kinds of attributes to God simultaneously, but we have seen again and again that people are not theologians.) Days after participants rated God on these characteristics, we invited them to take part in an apparently unrelated study, in which the same participants took a rigged math test on a computer, where they had opportunities to cheat while alone in a room. In reality, the computer covertly recorded the amount of cheating. While religious belief itself was unrelated to cheating—believers and nonbelievers were equally likely to cheat or not cheat—among believers, mean-God supporters were much less likely to cheat than nice-God supporters. In short, we found in the lab what cultural evolution stumbled on and exploited for thousands of years: mean gods make good people. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 168 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Believing God is punishing deters cheating more than believing God is kind — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 168; Priming God doubles giving and shifts norms toward fairness.; Religion bundles separable traits whose conflict roles must be disaggregated

Related

• Believing God is punishing deters cheating more than believing God is kind (similarity 0.92)
• Unconscious God reminders deter cheating while personal religiosity does not (similarity 0.82)
• Ideomotor accounts predict kind Gods matter while watcher accounts predict punishing ones (similarity 0.81)
• Subliminal God reminders increase costly punishment of free-riders among religious believers. (similarity 0.81)
• God-priming shifted the dominant norm from selfishness to equal splitting. (similarity 0.80)
• Believing God punishes reduces humans’ own costly punishment of norm violators (similarity 0.79)
• Belief that God punishes reduces people’s willingness to punish wrongdoers themselves. (similarity 0.79)
• Priming God-thoughts makes believers more generous only toward fellow believers. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Priming God doubles giving and shifts norms toward fairness. #corroborates (0.82)
• Believing God is punishing deters cheating more than believing God is kind #expands (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 168
• Religion bundles separable traits whose conflict roles must be disaggregated #complicates (0.72)